


Reciprocity

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caring, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another that just arrived, this time spurred by thoughts provoked by--but quite separate from--Doctor Billy's Chimæra series. Please, it's important to say, it is not a comment or in any way dependent on the series, which I like, but instead the series served as a jumping off point for a line of thought and questioning, that led ultimately to this, which is freestanding. </p><p>I have not failed to ever write Greg as the needy character--but he IS a nuturer, and he's more at home in his own skin than Holmses, and it's easy to write him as taking care of them. But I do like it when I remember to reverse the dynamic, and show Mycroft taking care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reciprocity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoctorBilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorBilly/gifts).



Sherlock stood in the waiting area of the A&E—uneasy, unsettled, and as a result, unmannerly. He’d been there all night. The hospital had threatened to have him removed if he didn’t shut the fuck up—the floor manager had put it more politely, but that was quite obviously what she was thinking. In the end it had taken both Mycroft and John to force him into silence—and John had left an hour ago, when word had come that Lestrade was all right, and would be released as an out-patient. That left Mycroft to attempt to bridle his younger brother, when younger brother was in a high and mighty strop.

“He shouldn’t have attempted the leap.”

“You shouldn’t have led the chase over the rooftops,” Mycroft snapped. “It’s time to realize both your companions are shorter and older than you. The combination is inauspicious when it comes to rooftop chases, Sherlock.”

“They’re adults,” Sherlock protested. “They’re supposed to be able to make sensible decisions on their own.”

“And if they do you goad them for failing to keep up.”

Sherlock glowered and huffed and was clearly considering whether to plan dire vengeance on his brother when Lestrade came limping out.

“What took you so long?” Sherlock sized the other man up, tallying his injuries. “Cracked wrist—Colle’s fracture?”

Lestrade merely nodded.

“You shouldn’t have tried to catch yourself with your hands extended.”

“I fell off a roof, you tosser,” Lestrade said, but without venom. “Some things are reflex.”

“It was only a storey down. You were lucky the building had a lower wing.”

Lestrade grunted. He held the arm cautiously, even taking the sling into account.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said, “DI Lestrade’s had a difficult day and a worse evening. Perhaps rather than grading him on his capacity to protect himself from your recklessness, he might be allowed to return to his home?”

“I wanted to review his observations of the criminal.”

“Six eight, at a guess, white, male, age approximately mid-twenties, dressed in a dark jumper and black joggers—not a ninja suit, but might as well have been. Same black-on-black vibe. Fast. Fit. I doubt I’ll be able to pick him out of a line-up or from the photo files, though. Most of what I saw was his back and bum accelerating away from us.” Lestrade was calm, professional—and too obviously at the end of his tether. “So if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to get on home.”

Sherlock started to say something—and was cut off by a look from his brother so pointed it should have left stab marks. He drew his breath, and said, “Good. Yes, well. I got a bit more, but not much. I’ll talk to John tomorrow. Sometimes he notices things I haven’t.” He made that sound like a minor miracle, though not an entirely welcome one. He looked at Lestrade. “You’ll be all right then? Get home on your own?”

“I’ll be fine, Sherlock,” Lestrade said, and forced a smile. “Go on. On your way. I’ll call a cab.”

“Good,” Sherlock said. “I was going to offer to share mine, but really, it’s hardly on my way.” And with that he was gone with a bat-wing flutter of Belstaff skirts.

“Stroppy little wanker,” Lestrade muttered, caught between fondness and annoyance. He looked at Mycroft. “Thanks for staying,” he said. “It was good to see familiar faces after they’d hauled me about and jerked my bones and stuck me with things and layered on the plasters on whatever bled.” He straightened, and added, “Can you reach in my pocket and get out my mobile? I need to call a cab.”

Mycroft reached into his own pocket and pulled out his own phone. “Allow me,” he said, and bent over the pad.

“Yeah. Look—I’m dying for a cigarette. Been dying for one the past three hours. Do you mind if I…?” He cocked his head toward the doors leading to the arrival bay. “Tell them I’ll be out there, by the entrance, yeah?”

“Of course,” Mycroft said, and waved one hand imperiously as he raised the phone to his ear. “Go on—what? Yes…” He waved again, and Lestrade limped away.

It took him three times to get his cigarette lit, between having to remove his jacket to reach the correct pocket and then having to break the process down into one-handed steps. The wind didn’t help. At last, though, he was back in his jacket with his cigarettes and lighter placed in more accessible pockets, and a lit fag sending up a thin spiral of smoke. He closed his eyes and sighed, wondering how long the cab would take.

“He doesn’t mean to be so obnoxious, you know,” Mycroft said, seeming to materialize out of the evening gloom at his elbow. “He doesn’t like being worried, though. So you tell him you’ll be fine and he disappears. He’s observant enough to know you’ve lied—but the lie is convenient and permits him his escape.”

Lestrade snorted, coughed on his smoke, then wheezed a dry chuckle. “Yeah. I know. He’s a bloody coward about the caring stuff, isn’t he?”

“A trait he and I share in common, I’m afraid. Neither of us any good at the tempests of relationship. It is something I have always admired in you—that you appear to be able to care without it destroying you.”

Lestrade frowned. “Hell, Mycroft—what am I supposed to do with that? It’s just me, right? Good old Lestrade. I get on with things, that’s all. Can’t afford not to.”

“And yet, you take such care of people.”

Lestrade gave Mycroft a long, sardonic look, head tipped and chin tucked, as though he were peering over the top rim of a pair of glasses. At last he said, “Copper, right? ‘Caring profession.’ Goes with the badge, tha’s all.”

Mycroft prepared to argue, but Lestrade’s growl stopped him. After a moment he smiled, his mouth tight and ironic. “Very well,” he said. “But it’s not right that you care, but are so seldom cared for. Sherlock owes you more.”

“Sherlock’s a…cub. Always was. Daresay he always will be. He is what he is, and I know what kind of man he is in the end. Great. Sometimes good. Never… Well. You won’t put him in the caring professions, now, would you?” He took a final drag and dropped the stub, toeing it out on the pavement. “I get by. Can’t miss what I never had.”

Mycroft made a small, irked sound, but refused to comment. Instead he said, “You’ve got your medications?”

“No. Need to pick those up tomorrow.”

“You’ll need them tonight.”

“Too tired,” Lestrade said. “Really. Want nothing more than to go home.”

“I’ll see we get them,” Mycroft growled. “I’ll have my assistant come around tomorrow to make sure you’ve got food in the flat, too.”

“We?” Only then did he wonder why Mycroft was standing in the porte-cochere outside the entry with him. “Holmes, what did you…”

Then the black jaguar limo pulled up, and he sighed. “Yeah, OK. All right. I didn’t want to put you out.”

“You didn’t. I was going to call the car anyway—and unlike my brother, I don’t care if your flat takes me out of my way.”

“You’re not paying cab fare,” Lestrade pointed out, stern and just—and amused. “You’ve got your own car on call and a chauffeur into the bargain. Bet you don’t pay for gas or parking, either.”

“Or tolls or tickets,” Mycroft agreed, then gently herded Lestrade toward the car, one arm not quite coming to rest around his back. “Come along, now, there’s a nice Detective Inspector. You just climb in and Hodgekiss and I will see to everything.”

Lestrade couldn’t help laughing, even as he frowned out at Mycroft from the luxurious passenger seat. “You’re a holy terror, Holmes. You should have been a nanny.”

Mycroft crimped his lips and rolled his eyes. “Obviously you haven’t been paying attention, Lestrade. Between my brother and the international community, I’m either a nanny or a kindergarten teacher. I’m seldom sure which.” He slipped into his own side of the car and tapped the glass to let the chauffeur know he was settled.

Lestrade looked over at him and smiled. “And me? Where do I fit into all this? A cot in the nursery and a mobile of duckies and bunnies to grab at when I’m bored?”

Mycroft looked out the window, refusing to face Lestrade, and said, softly, “No, Detective Inspector. My brother pointed out earlier this evening you’re a grown adult.”

“Then what?” Lestrade asked.

Mycroft shrugged, and the street lights played over his still face. At last he said, “I needed to know that someone returned your care.” He said nothing more until they reached the chemist, when he asked for Lestrade’s prescriptions, then hurried in himself to purchase them.

Lestrade watched him rush across the street, a tall, dapper man in a neat Crombie overcoat. He wondered, with an unexpected lump in his throat, how he would ever repay the man for that one simple gift of returned kindness.


End file.
